Stocking the pantry...

Yesterday the headline of Yahoo finance said, "Half-million jobs vanish as economy deteriorates."

The article went on to say, "A record one in 10 American homeowners with a mortgage was either at least a month behind on payments or in foreclosure at the end of September, the Mortgage Bankers Association reported."

This caused my dear friend, Ranae and I to continue our on-going discussion about the economy and being prepared by stocking up on pantry and personal hygiene items. One point that came up in our discussion was where to start if you haven't prepared in either of these areas. Should you begin pantry storage or linen closet storage. My thought is that even though cleanliness is next to godliness food is my priorety. For several years now, I have been storing white flour, rolled oats, quick oats, Prairie Gold wheat berries, evaporated cane juice crystals and Sucanat. I store them in 5-6 gallon buckets in my basement. Each bucket has a gamma seal lid except for the Sucanat. The Sucanat is stored in an airtight pet food container that was never used for pet food. I buy 50-100# of each of these items at a time. Typically I can buy 100# of wheat berries and flour but only 50# of oats and sugars. When my supply gets low, I buy more. Typically, I do not have to replace them all at once. This helps the pocket book.

Here is a look at the buckets.

I also have two chrome storage shelves in the basement for canned goods, condiments, and other food stuffs.

Last year I canned a lot more than I did this year. This year we had too much water, and my garden was flooded twice during the season. I did not can tomatoes, but for about 6 weeks this fall I bought 4-6 cans of crushed tomatoes and tomato puree when the local grocery store had them on sale for $0.69 per 28 ounce can. I worked my way up to about 30 cans. I do this for many things that the store puts on sale.

I don't think stocking up means you have to blow your grocery budget. For me I just have to pay attention and match my need to the sales.

I am not very well stocked up in my linen closet. That is going to be the next area I tackle. Also, I would really like a 4-6 month supply of cat food, but I haven't gotten that far.

On a final note, I also refilled prescriptions today even though I do not need a refill right now. I want to have prescriptions on hand in the event that my husband would lose his job, and we didn't have insurance. It would help for a while.